The Seattle Mariners have been stuck in a 12-year long playoff drought that has created a lot of animosity towards the current ownership group. Fans have been clamouring for the ownership to spend money to bring top flight free agents to the franchise and often forgetting about the fact that Bill Bavasi constructed the first 10o (0r more) loss team while pay roll was over $100 million roster in Major League Baseball history in 2008 — the 2008 team’s payroll was $113 million and earned the team lost 101 games.

That frustration has caused fan interest to wain, and attendance at Safeco Field to plummet. It is up to Jack Zduriencik to create a roster that can start to generate wins, while keeping the long-term health of the franchise intact.

During the last off-season, Jack Zduriencik has been able to bring in several intelligent off-season signings…but has avoided making that trade that could force the team into another five to six-year rebuild. These moves have also rapidly reactivated fan interest in the team, but this roster still isn’t anywhere near a team that could make the playoffs this season.

Steven Silver of Fox Sports 1380 KRKO called into our show on Sat. Feb. 16th to talk about the Seattle Mariners and the off-season acquisitions. We also discussed some of the other potential moves that our out there for Zduriencik to make. The interview lasted just over a half an hour, but the recording below lost the first three minutes of our conversation thanks to some of the difficulties regarding KUGR.org’s studio — please consider donating to the station to help by clicking the donate button at the bottom of the page.

Pretty positive takes on the Mariners by everybody in the conversation. I’m more skeptical, but would love to be proven wrong this year. Want to get excited about Mariners again. I feel a few more years and I;ll be entirely detached from the franchise. Going to try to go to a game or two this year to try to get interested again. .

It will be, especially for a franchise that’s spent so many years trying to pass off a long rebuilding process that wasn’t going to materialize. Hope this pays off and doesn’t bury them in the long term.